How Is Huma Abedin Still Married to Anthony Weiner?

It may be politics, but not the kind you think.

About 15 minutes into Weiner,Elyse Steinberg and Josh Kriegman’sextraordinary documentary about the implosion of Anthony Weiner’s 2013 campaign for mayor of New York, comes a startling revelation from the candidate about his wife, Huma Abedin, the longtime confidante of Hillary Clinton. Weiner turns to Kriegman, manning the camera, and articulates what lots of people have always thought about Abedin: that she is enigmatic to a point of incomprehension. Hearing her voice for the first time on-camera is, Weiner says, “like hearing Charlie Chaplin in the talkies for the first time.” Then, he noted, rather insightfully, “If she were the candidate, I’d be getting crushed.”

It’s a poignant moment because it is candid, perceptive, and real. For all Abedin’s time in the spotlight as Clinton’s gatekeeper—standing by her side at the Gay Pride parade, or whispering in her ear during the 11-hour Benghazi hearing—she remains largely a cipher, a point she essentially admits in the film during a fund-raiser at a Park Avenue apartment. She rarely speaks in public unless she is executing the stilted locutions required by her professional responsibilities. She also rarely cooperates with profiles about her, unless the topic is her son, Jordan, (in People) or when she is transparently navigating a political playbook to return her husband to prominence (The New York Times Magazine). She did not speak to me for my V.F. profile of her published earlier this year.

As I reported my story, speaking to dozens of people in and around Clinton World, I asked the same inevitable question again and again: How was it that Abedin, who appears so charismatic and disciplined, remains married to Weiner, a hothead who has a propensity to document his nether regions on social media? This being the Clintons, no one wanted to speak on the record, but they did offer a compelling picture.

First of all, many of my sources made clear that, once upon a time, Weiner and Abedin shared a genuine chemistry. Part of this was circumstantial, many noted. They were both on steep, political trajectories in Washington and the possibilities must have seemed endless. He was a protégé of New York senator Chuck Schumer, and she, of course, had devoted herself without interruption to Clinton. Other sources suggested, however, that it was actually their differences that brought them together. Weiner, the flamboyant Jewish kid from New York, courted Abedin, the seemingly shy and retiring Muslim, who was born in Michigan (both her parents were professors), but spent most of her childhood in Saudi Arabia. In other words, they could not have been more different, and one of the first rules of physical chemistry must have kicked in: opposites attracted, and they fell in love. (A spokesperson for Abedin did not return a request for comment.)

This chemistry is on obvious display in the first part of Weiner, before his second sexting scandal erupted. When Weiner is leading in the polls, Abedin is playing the supportive wife, giving a speech—“We love this city,” she says at one point early on, “and no one will work harder to make it better than Anthony”—and making a campaign appearance. Along with her large Louis Vuitton satchel, Abedin seems to have accepted her fate as Mrs. Weiner, along with the responsibilities that are part of trying to get her husband elected mayor. We learn in Weiner for instance, that she’s the one who wanted him to run for mayor in the first place in order to resurrect his career. “She was very eager to get her life back that I had taken from her,” Weiner says at one point, “to clean up the mess I had made, and running for mayor was the straightest line to do that.”

But it’s also clear that Abedin isn’t just doing this to alleviate her own shame. Like a caring spouse, she is doing it to improve her husband’s own self-image.

The question of how Weiner and Abedin remain married is harder to answer after his second sexting exploits under the nom de plume, Carlos Danger. At this point in Weiner, Abedin is excruciating to watch. “It’s like reliving the nightmare,” she says at one point when Weiner asks her how she’s feeling after the new revelations.

My sources offered various theories about how the couple has made it, beyond hours of therapy, which Abedin acknowledges in the film. By the time Weiner’s sexting scandal became public, Abedin was pregnant, a circumstance that put both of them in a very difficult position. Complicating the dynamic between them further was the fact that Abedin is Muslim, a religion that frowns upon divorce. Others suggested the influence of Clinton herself, who stood by her own husband during his stretch of promiscuity.

But I did come across another suggestion: politics. Both the professional kind, and the marital type. The one good thing about Weiner’s foibles is that they have made him all but unemployable, save for some spot appearances on NY1. He therefore becomes the perfect stay-at-home dad, allowing Abedin the freedom to roam around the country for what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If Clinton is elected in November, chances appear likely that Abedin’s arrangement with her husband will allow her to claim a very senior position in the Clinton White House, and that will go far in restoring the credibility that her husband’s behavior robbed from her.

I was dubious about this theory until I watched Weiner. In yet another revealing, and equally excruciating scene, Weiner and Abedin are surrounded by Weiner’s staff during an impromptu meeting to discuss the Carlos Danger texts. His staff is miffed at him. One even admits to feeling genuinely let down. He’s having trouble getting over Weiner’s betrayals and tells him so.

But Abedin won’t have any of it. She coolly tells her husband and the staffer to take the conversation offline, even though the whole purpose of the meeting was to air just these views. During the same meeting, Barbara Morgan, Weiner’s communications director, was tearing up. She had been on the front lines of the irrepressible battle with the press and the voters, and appeared to feel equally dismayed. Abedin told her to shape up, too. Everything, it seemed, was politics. “Just a quick optics thing,” she says. “I assume the photographers are still outside, so you will look happy? I’m saying this for you. I don’t want it to be, ‘The press secretary walked out very upset at 6:30.’”

When the buzz about Weiner started building at Sundance earlier this year—the film won the prize for best documentary—there was the expectation that its release in theaters would hurt Clinton’s quest for the presidency. Somewhat surprisingly, that has not happened. But for all the glowing reviews about the film, it has only generated around $1,400,000. Instead, both the Clinton campaign and the voting public were confronted with an even more unpredictable drama playing out daily on cable news, one that even Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin can’t match: Donald Trump, who of course scores a brief cameo in the documentary proclaiming that “perverts” like Weiner have no place in New York City.

[UPDATE: On August 29th, shortly after Anthony Weiner was allegedly caught in a third sexting scandal, Abedin announced that the couple was separating.]